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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24115717">Stalemate</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/resnullius_bells/pseuds/resnullius_bells'>resnullius_bells</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rapunzel (Fairy Tale)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Character Study, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Introspection, Minor Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:42:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,165</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24115717</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/resnullius_bells/pseuds/resnullius_bells</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rapunzel had escaped from her skyscraper, but the hard part was what to do next.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Frau Gothel | Dame Gothel &amp; Rapunzel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Fic 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Stalemate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/gifts">cirque</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I hope my recipient likes this ^^</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rapunzel had cut off her own curls as close to the scalp as she had dared. It had been the pragmatic thing to do; it would only weigh her down in her escape. However, she kept catching herself passing her hands through the uneven strands, missing it simply because it had always been there. A recurrent theme in her short life.</p><p>She was out, finally, yet it didn't feel real. If she had waited until Mother's return, it might. Rapunzel had daydreamed about it countless times, and in a lot of them, the witch was there, or arrived just as she attempted to climb down the only unsealed entrance in the abandoned skyscraper. The point being -Rapunzel got her final confrontation. Some form of reckoning ought to occur; it only seemed fitting. But after months of trying to build up the courage to face her to gain her freedom, she was ashamed to say she had taken the easy route.</p><p>The scenery wasn't of much help: she had walked for days across the abandoned city, through an abandoned road, to arrive at an abandoned, barren valley where she took refuge in a low cave to eat some of her rations and ponder over her options.</p><p>Rapunzel, as she often did, thought about how every one of her problems started with the tears.</p><p>The first twelve years of her life were what she, in her very limited experience, put under the definition of normalcy. That meant, among other things, that she could walk with relative freedom, as long as Mother's hand was holding her. That she could lay on the ground and see stars. That her world was a little more open than one single space.</p><p>Mother acted differently, as well. She couldn't be considered an affectionate woman, but Rapunzel didn't have anyone to compare her to, since they never crossed paths with another human being. She only knew that after the incident, something had changed.</p><p>Rapunzel was scared, because Mother was wounded. In retrospect, it hadn't been worth the fuss but; Rapunzel, as sheltered a child as one could possibly be in her circumstances, was used to a few scraps on her own knees but little else beyond that, and certainly, not on <em>Mother</em>. Startled tears fell from her eyes into the ugly cut on Mother's palm, and impossibly healed it before their eyes.</p><p>Mother turned paranoid. She claimed to fear that someone could take Rapunzel and use her newly discovered gift. To the little girl, that had sounded foolish: there was never anyone else. But it wouldn't have occurred to her to disobey: it was, simply, not within the accepted parameters; there was no room in her head for even the possibility of option B. Mother had spoken.</p><p>With time, those parameters became a little loose. If she didn't think of disobeying the one big order, there was room to think about violating the smaller guidelines. Like sneaking into the digital archives. Most of them were locked, and her attempts to crack them open had started out as pretty clumsy, but she'd gotten better with time. </p><p>The first thing she searched for was anything that might give her information about her biological parents. Mother never gave her any information beyond confirming their existence, and if during the first part of her life that hadn't bothered Rapunzel (for after all, who else would she need, if she had Mother?), the solitary hours in her sky-high trap had kindled the flames of her curiosity.</p><p>She never found anything, and after time, the task became more of a crutch: an excuse to not go on with her goal of escaping, for she still hadn't learned enough; not about her parents, nor the world. Yet she still had to make the jump, eventually.</p><p>In truth, escaping had only become a goal (an unknown concept to Rapunzel until it suddenly wasn't) very recently, during the stormy night an intruder broke into their home, for lack of a better word.</p><p>It was a man, something Rapunzel had only seen in pixels, but that didn't look all that different from a woman, or at least the two she knew. Paler than her, but so was Mother; with shorter hair, but that was inconsequential; taller, and heavier, which did become an issue.</p><p>They <em>had</em> to fight him off, to defend themselves, and it ended with Mother making a quick trip down to bury him. When she returned, Mother claimed he had been there after Rapunzel, after her gifts. For the first time, Rapunzel saw it as an obvious attempt to scare her, and for the first time too, it didn't work. The man had only seemed hungry.</p><p>Rapunzel became obsessed, not with him, but with the idea of a <em>them</em>. If there was even just one other person alive in the world, there could be more. And Rapunzel discovered, shocked, that she longed to meet them. Any of them. Even if there was a possibility that they were just as violent and terrifying as the intruder, it was just as possible that they were not. And she found that she yearned for that; that she wanted to hear another voice besides Mother's or her own, to learn someone else's stories, to touch and to laugh and to compare herself with another person. Someone that was alive and vibrant, instead of furious and lifeless on the ground.</p><p>And the obvious conclusion was: I can't do that if I stay here.</p><p>And the even more obvious issue was: Mother will never let me leave.</p><p>Each step Rapunzel took in her escape was agony. She wanted to return before Mother discovered she'd abandoned her. Or at least so she could beg for her forgiveness and cry with regret and hope her tears could heal Mother's anger, too.</p><p>But she had taken them, the steps. Her determination and her longing fought off her fears and her remorse. For now, at least, the firsts were winning.</p><p>She knew, deep down, that Mother would follow her and try to find her. She no longer knew if she would do it out of love or out of... whatever it was, that the tears changed in her. Greediness, perhaps. </p><p>But as she tucked herself inside a thermal sleeping bag she had stolen from Mother's supplies, Rapunzel decided what she felt was reassurance. Mother had been her only constant for too long. She would miss her. And if they found each other again, maybe they could have their confrontation. Maybe, Rapunzel thought with unwarranted optimism, Mother could be convinced to let her out to explore, and everything would go back to the way things were.</p><p>And most of all, she wanted to see Mother again because she feared she was wrong. She feared she would discover that there was nobody else to meet and laugh with; that the two of them were the last two people on Earth, and she would have to feel guilty for the loss of the third.</p>
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